Human Rights Day

Today the 21st of March is Human Rights Day in South Africa.

Quinn's annual school camp-out was scheduled for last night. We went last year and had fun, so I was keen to go again. Of course this year we are sans Richard though, and I hadn't realised quite how accustomed I had got to him packing the car, setting up camp, making the beds (including blowing up air mattresses) and then taking it all down afterwards. God camping is a lot of work! Especially when it's only over night and only from 6pm to 8am!

I decided to take our easiest tent, which is the one the kids use when we go camping properly. It is simple and straight forward and you don't need a manual to figure out how to put it up...

I left the mattresses at home. But since the camp out is held at WPCC which is 2-3kms from home I went back to get one. Luckily I checked before I left, and as I suspected the mattress stoppers were not with them! Why?? Who knows!!?? Gah. I had a slight sense of humour failure over that. At least as mentioned I did check so I got a blanket and decided to make do with that. Once the tent and bed were set up, and as hundreds of other tents accompanied by running, yelling and raging kids arrived and followed suit I decided I would just have to pour myself a drink. The result was a really pleasant evening chatting to some parents, and mellowing out with beer, sparkling wine and Amarula.

I took the easy route dinner-wise and just bought the Nando's Chicken burgers being sold there. Easy and rather tasty. The kids went to bed around 10pm or so, and I followed at about 12am. The night was surprisingly quiet and restful and everyone settled down and were very considerate. I was woken by talking at 6:30am, but the volume was kept down until 7am when there was much more activity and everyone got up.
We munched on bacon and egg rolls and coffee and chatted while the tents dried off a bit from the morning dew, before packing up and heading home.

After unpacking and cleaning up the boys and I collected some flowers and set off across town for Lion's Head. It is Angelique's birthday on Friday, and her memorial White Stinkwood tree is planted on the slopes of Lion's Head, so I like to try to visit it near to the anniversary of her birth/death. She would have been nine years old this year...

I previously took Quinn and Griffin up with me in June last year. We visited Angelique's tree and then decided to press up a bit further. Griffin made it to the 'vench' (bench) overlooking Sea Point - about half way, before being too tired and giving up. I tried again just with Quinn a short while later, and was amazed that he could manage to go the whole way up, with several rests on the way.

So today I told Griffin we'd try and see how much he could manage. No pressure. We set off and despite being a bit tired from the late night he was in good spirits. Even helping me to carry the flowers some of the time.
We got up to Angelique's tree quite easily, but after some recent fires on Lion's Head/Signal Hill we were a bit worried whether it would still be there. In fact I couldn't find it at all, and was starting to think it had been crushed by a large falling tree. but then just when I was losing hope I saw it poking through a bit further down the slope. Griffin braved the bushes with me and we went down to it. He was very sweet and was stroking the tree gently and talking to it etc. We placed the flowers at the bottom of the tree, and I watered it a bit.
Griffin took this photo of me.
When we climbed back up to the main path, Griffin called out to Quinn, 'Quinn I saw Angelique! She is a tree, and she is alive and mommy watered her!' LOL

Both boys were still full of energy, especially after a lollipops I gave them, so we pressed on further and made it to the half way point at the Sea Point bench.
After a snack break they were ready to carry on, which we did right to the 'tippy-top', as Griffin says.


I was so impressed with Griffin, not only that he made it all the way up and down, but stayed cheerful, helpful and jovial throughout without moaning once. Incredible.

After we got to the bottom we went to Woolworths to buy some chocolate cake and brownies etc. Since the boys though Angelique needed a birthday cake. We took them to a friend's house where we had coffee, cake and a good chat, before heading home for much needed baths and hair washing. It was a good day.